Written and drawn by Wren McDonald
Published by Nobrow in 2016.
. . .
“I thought you didn’t give a shit?”
“I don’t. Now let’s get to it.”
. . .
Review by William D. Tucker.
Between two covers on one hundred sixteen pages of paper and in black, white, and two shades of purple we find ourselves in the near future dystopian mega tower of Avalon-a city rigidly divided by class. Much like in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, the capitalist overlords occupy the heights, the squishy middle management’s just below that, and below them you have the zero mobility wage slaves-and below them you have the subterranean layer just for the criminals, militants, and homeless folks. From the outlaw depths emerges SP4RX a mercenary cyborg superhacker with a mean streak who despises fools and fuck-ups. SP4RX is consciously focused on two things: kicking ass and getting paid. His unarticulated third passion is for his best friend and roommate CL1PP3R, a more easygoing cyborg street doctor who specializes in diagnostics and maintenance for the heavily modded hacker underground. The restless SP4RX likes adventure, hates failure, and prides himself on his hyper-competence. CL1PP3R is totally at ease with himself, loves nothing more than being plugged into virtual reality, and rarely goes outdoors.
SP4RX is one of those stories where you have an angry mercenary hero who doesn’t give a fuck . . . until he sorta gives a fuck. SP4RX is intriguing in that he is focused on externals-combat, money, vengeance against people he doesn’t respect-but his journey leads him to an unexpectedly internal destination. SP4RX explores themes of competency and efficiency by pitting a ruthless mercenary against a growing horde of brainwashed employees of an evil corporation. Free will seems to be the difference between SP4RX and his enemies, but even he seems to be fated by his perfectionism to transcend his draggy meats in order to merge with cyberspace. In an amusing irony, SP4RX drives himself harder than any corporate master ever could.
SP4RX is eventually recruited by one of them thar rebel underground type outfits. The Star Wars vibes even include an adorbs toyetic robot sidekick.
The climatic mission involves penetrating a convoluted enemy base while blasting cannon fodder bad guys. Yep, it’s got one of those.
What I liked best was how mean and antisocial SP4RX is-the dude rampages against copbots and brainwashed employees and even steals a motorcycle on a whim. He smokes cigarettes. He’s got this robotic left arm that serves as a hydraulic ram, lockpick, and cigarette lighter all-in-one. He’s got a de rigeur Neuromancer/Ghost in the Shell cyberbrain to plug his consciousness into cyberspace. He also has no problem telling people he doesn’t respect to get fucked. SP4RX is ironically optimized to conquer a shitass lousy world he despises. Now, this isn’t really in the spirit of Neuromancer, since Gibson’s vision is far more humanistic. Gibson’s characters prevail to the degree that they resist total mechanization. SP4RX is born of a more callous age that feels congruent with both the police state Machiavellianism of Ghost in the Shell and Neo Gilded Age America in the back half of the 2010s: mean, stupid, greedy, obsessed with technology, always online, strung out on every kind of drug, hypersexual yet anhedonic, heavily armed, and self-destructive.
Much of what transpires here is familiar, but the commentary on work/life imbalance in the gig economy age of hustle and grind is on point. There’s also great world-building featuring lots of posthuman architecture. I especially liked the squalid, tightly packed VR parlor that SP4RX visits in the depths of his alienation. SP4RX’s technological dystopia replaces human intimacy with absorbing, fully monetized virtuality at every turn: fuckbots, full immersion brainlink fantasias, and corporatized media shilling greener grass lifestyle pornography in lieu of actual information.
SP4RX is an example of a creator-owned genre exercise done well. Writer/artist Wren McDonald isn’t pulling out his guts for some indie autobiographical masterpiece on this one. This isn’t Harvey Pekar or Alison Bechdel or Dave Sim. Wren is doing what he wants with a cyberpunk saga of an antisocial mercenary hacker fighting to survive in a world he never made. This isn’t the literary, densely ironic cyberpunk of William Gibson’s Neuromancer, Count Zero, or Mona Lisa Overdrive, but rather the action-oriented highly processed fructose corn syrup cyberpunk of GURPS, Mike Pondsmith, Shadowrun tie-in novels, Robert Longo’s film of Gibson’s Johnny Mnemonic, and the Albert Pyun flick Nemesis. SP4RX is focused on kicking maximum ass spiked with some Robocop/Starship Troopers style Media Break-esque satirical asides. It goes down easy and leaves you with a memorable aftertaste. Overall, it’s one more exhibit in the case for the superiority of an actual human creator over a corporation or an AI even if it’s just for entertainment purposes.
